1.The Commission
has received several communications denouncing the situation of Armando
F. Valladares in Cuba.

Armando
Valladares was sentenced to 30 years in prison on December 27, 1960,
because he dissented from the President of the Council of State, Fidel
Castro. Valladares is 44 years of age, and this year will have spent 22
of these in prison.

According
to information received: "On June 24, 1974, the Warden of the
penitentiary declared that all 'intransigent' prisoners (as those who
did not accept the political re-education were called) were on a hunger
strike. Two months later, the hunger strike was lifted and Valladares
remained ill from polyneuritis, as a consequence of lack of food.

The
following was reported in a denunciation of May 16, 1977:

The
denial of food to the prisoners of the Cabaña Prison for 47 days, to
compel them to accept the rehabilitation plans, the blue uniforms of
common prisoners, and military discipline, led to the illness diagnosed
as polyneuritis. This illness can be cured with proper medical
treatment, but that treatment is denied to Valladares. He has been
physically mistreated many times. He endured the forced labor plan of
the prison on the island of Pinos. He spent more than three years in the
walled-in cells of Boniato Prison, where the sunlight never enters,
where food is deficient and scarce, where there is no medical care of
any type. He has been permitted no visits from his family for more than
seven years, and receipt of mail is uncertain. Nor can he receive
"care packages" from his family or medicines.

In
a document furnished with the aforementioned denunciation the Minister
of Public Health of Cuba, Dr. Joaquín García Díaz, on November 4,
1974, affirmed that Valladares suffers from "flaccid paraplegia of
a deficiency type and polyneuropathy of a deficiency type, has a motor
deficiency in his lower extremities, and in my opinion this patient is a
candidate for entry into a rehabilitation hospital". The result of
47 days without food.

2.In a
communication of July 5, 1977, the Commission transmitted the pertinent
parts of the denunciation to the Government of Cuba, requesting it to
provide the information that it deemed appropriate.

3.To date, the
Government of Cuba has not replied to the Commission's communication.

4.In 1979, the
Commission received the following additional information from the
claimant:

Every
morning he is brought some envelopes with medicines and a card
containing a list so that he can take the medicine himself at the hours
indicated. As he is an asthmatic, they left him a large bottle of
oxygen, a vaporizer, ampules of physiological serum, and anti-asthmatic
liquid, so that when he has an attack he himself can prepare the aerosol
and administer it. Imagine this: he awakens at dawn with a serious
attack and he himself, a handicapped person, in the midst of wheezing
exhalations and gasping for air, in a state of suffocation, has to break
open the ampules and measure the aerosol by guesswork, since he cannot
measure the amount of liquid, work the keys of the oxygen tank, etc.
Besides violating his condition as handicapped person, this treatment
also is a violation of his condition as a human being.

The
provocations have been on the increase. He had been authorized to
receive daily visits. But do you know? It was in order to check upon the
people who come to see him, and that was indeed the case. Last Saturday
they stopped one of his visitors, who was interrogated for hours,
pressured, and terrorized. The prisoner has been held completely
incommunicado since that time.

A
wheelchair sent to him by the Dutch Red Cross last June through the
Cuban Red Cross has not been delivered, and the Cuban Red Cross had the
outrageous nerve to inform those who sent him the chair that it had
already been delivered. That is a lie, and he needs the chair. His own
chair belongs to the State, is rotted, rusted, works badly, and one of
the wheels falls off. His mother was threatened that if she continued
claiming the chair, this would be considered a counter-revolutionary
activity.

5.The Commission
sent the Government of Cuba the additional information on Valladares'
situation in a communication of May 16, 1979, requesting that it supply
the appropriate information.

6.To date the
Cuban Government has made no reply.

7.In 1980, the
Commission received the following information, stating that Valladares'
situation had not improved:

The
political prisoner Armando Valladares is in a cell of the Hospital
Combinado del Este, where he is psychologically and physically tortured.
Psychologically, through all kinds of threats against him and his
family, part of which still lives in Cuba; he is blackmailed and
pressured day and night; sophisticated psychological methods are used in
an effort to unhinge his mind; physically, he is tortured by not being
given either the medicines or the treatment that he urgently needs
because of the breakdown of his health, nor has he been given the
wheelchair. He cannot operate on his own, because he is physically
prostrate, but he is made to get up and to make physical movements that
are usually impossible for him.

On
December 12, 1980, the IACHR received detailed information on the
situation of the Valladares family, which reads: His mother, sister, and
brother-in-law who was also a political prisoner, can be considered
hostages of the Cuban Government. Although they have foreign visas, the
Government denied them permission to leave. The prison authorities have
informed Valladares that he will have to sign a letter recanting his
denunciations, so that his family can leave the country.

8.In a
communication of August 13, 1980, the Commission transmitted the
information received to the Cuban Government, reporting Valladares'
situation and requesting appropriate such information as the Government
deemed appropriate.

9.The Cuban
Government has not replied to the Commission's communications to date.

WHEREAS:

1.To date, the
Cuban Government has not replied to the requests of the Commission; and

2.Article 39 of
the Regulations of the Commission establishes as follows:

Article
39

The
facts reported in the petition whose pertinent parts have been
transmitted to the government of the state in reference shall be
presumed to be true if, during the maximum period set by the Commission
under the provisions of Article 31, paragraph 5, the government has not
provided the pertinent information, as long as other evidence does not
lead to a different conclusion.

THE
INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS,

RESOLVES:

1.In application
of Article 39 of the Regulations, to presume to be true the acts
denounced in the communications of May 16, 1977, April 20, 1979, and
June 17, 1980, and various others concerned with the arbitrary detention
of the prisoner Armando F. Valladares Pérez and the denial to him of
medical care.

2.To declare that
the Government of Cuba violated the right to liberty and personal
security (Article I), the right to inviolability and transmission of
correspondence (Article X), the right to the preservation of health and
to wellbeing through health and social measures relating to food and
medical care (Article XI), the right to a fair trial (Article XVIII),
the right to protection against arbitrary arrest and the right to humane
treatment during the time the individual is in custody (Article XXV),
the right to due process and protection from cruel, infamous, or unusual
punishment (Article XXVI).

3.To transmit
this decision to the Government of Cuba and to the claimants.

4.To include this resolution in the Annual Report of the Commission
to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in
accordance with Article 18, paragraph (f) of the Statute and Article 59,
paragraph (g) of the Regulations of the Commission.